ASME Launches Open-Source Project
by Harry Hutchinson

ASME is launching a Web site to support an open-source project to develop a portable water-purification system. Anyone may sign up to contribute to the project. Instructions for doing so are available on the ASME Web site at http://www. asme.org/Communities/Open_ Source_Design.cfm.

The open-source project follows up the 2007 ASME Student Design Competition. The competition, which was won in November by a team from the University of Nevada, Reno, chal- lenged students to design and build a water-purification system that was portable and exclusively human-powered. The idea was to create something that could render water potable in the absence of electricity or other power sources, as in a remote region of the developing world or at a disaster site.

According to David Soukup, managing director for ASME Centers, which is sponsoring the project, the broad idea of supplying water off the electric grid still holds, but the group is still developing its mission statement. The project will welcome suggestions from the public.

Students on the team are Bill Hagen, University of Miami; José La Verde, Lunds University in Skane, Sweden; Javier Lopez, Simón Bolívar University in Caracas; Zach Pearl, Western Kentucky University; and Ken Ruble, New Mexico State University.

The group will collaborate on a virtual design for several months and is scheduled to build a prototype at Western Kentucky, the host school, in June. Its work will be posted on the Web site and be available for comment and contributions by any interested person.

Kevin Schmaltz and Robert Choate, both associate professors in the Department of Engineering at Western Kentucky, are the project managers.

According to Soukup, ASME is providing $30,000 to Western Kentucky to cover faculty honorariums and project costs. Each participating student will receive $2,000 and travel expenses.

A subsidiary of EMCOR Group Inc. has been awarded a contract to provide mechanical construction services for a new 24 million gallon per day water treatment plant in Gilbert, Ariz. The value of the contract is $88.5 million.

The subsidiary, University Mechanical & Engineer Contractors of El Cajon, Calif., will construct and install process equipment and piping for the raw water control, ballasted flocculation basins, filter gallery and filters, blower room, reservoir/pre-chlorination well, finished water pump station, recovered water basin, thickened sludge pump station, sludge drying beds, chemical building, and lox/ozone mechanical room for the water treatment plant. The company will provide all chemical piping, as well as heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, and ductwork.

The plant will have the capability to expand to 48 million gallons per day.

A leader in engineered components and systems for vehicle powertrain applications, BorgWarner Thermal Systems of Auburn Hills, Mich., has broken ground for a new facility near Chennai, India.

Located in a high-tech business park near several automakers, the new 63,000-square-foot (5,900-square-meter) facility will include manufacturing, training, design services, and administrative space for over 100 employees with room for future expansion.

Designed as a "green building," the facility will be silver-certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, a set of standards for environmentally sustainable construction developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. More than 30 percent of the grounds around the new facility will be reserved for green space and shaded with trees and plants watered with recycled wastewater.

In addition, several water- and energy-saving devices will be installed throughout the building. The facility is expected to be complete by October 2008.

BorgWarner Thermal Systems in India produces viscous fan drives, fans, exhaust gas recirculation valves, and solenoids for customers including Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors, Tata Cummins, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Eicher Motors, among others. Tata Motors recently introduced a car that will sell for $2,500 in India.

Over 100 Jets in a Year
by Harry Hutchinson

A manufacturer of very light jets, which delivered its first airplane on Dec. 31, 2006, said that it produced and certified 103 more in 2007. The company said it knows of no other manufacturer of general aviation jet aircraft that built its first 100 planes in so short a time.

According to a representative of the company, the business plan for the aircraft, which is called the Eclipse 500, is based on volume. She said the company has implemented technology to maintain a high rate of production.

The company uses friction stir welding to join parts that would be riveted in conventional aircraft manufacture. The company claims the welds are stronger than rivets, and the process is considerably quicker. All the parts for a plane can be welded in a single eight-hour shift, the representative said.

She said there is new, proprietary technology in the painting facility that is faster than conventional aircraft painting. She was not free to discuss details.

Although, she said, "we'll never build jets as fast as they build cars," the company is modeling some of its methods on the auto industry. The company's vice president of manufacturing, Todd Fierro, was hired from Ford Motor Co. to boost production levels, she said.

787 Over 800
by Harry Hutchinson

A deal with Vietnam Airlines and Vietnam Aircraft Leasing Co. has pushed the total orders for Boeing 787-8s to more than 800 planes, the aircraft manufacturer said.

The Boeing Co. said the order, which is included in its 2007 totals, is worth about $2 billion.

Vietnam Airlines is taking four planes, on top of a previous order for four jets placed in 2005. Boeing said it expects to deliver the first plane from the previous order in 2009. The leasing company, which was formed last year, will take eight planes and lease them to Vietnam Airlines.

The total order for 12 planes brings the overall orders for the 787 to 802 aircraft, Boeing said.

Researchers in England said that they've found a way to liberate the ultrasound image from the computer screen and have it hang in the air above the viewers' heads.

This technology could also be adapted for high sound-frequency tests, such as drilling for oil, where a more accurate image of the earth could be made in order to pinpoint where drilling should take place, said Sebastien Guenneau, a professor in the University of Liverpool's department of mathematical sciences.

Mathematicians at the university in Liverpool, England, have found they can gain what they call full control of sound waves, which they said could lead to improved medical scans like ultrasounds.

Working in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, the researchers tested the numerical properties of a flat lens made of a meta-material. This meta-material is thought to allow objects to appear exactly as they are rather than upside down, as seen in a normal convex or concave lens, Guenneau said.

"We know that light can be controlled using meta-material that can bend electromagnetic radiation around an area of space, making any object within it appear invisible," he said. "Now we have produced a mathematical model that proves this theory also works for sound."

The theory becomes particularly interesting when considering ultrasound. With that method, sound pressure penetrates an object to produce an image of what the object looks like inside. It's commonly used in pregnancy scans to produce an image of the fetus.

"We found that at a particular wave frequency the meta-material has a negative refraction effect, which means that the image produced in the flat lens appears at a high resolution in exactly the same way it appears in reality," Guenneau said.

"What surprised us most of all, however, was at the point where negative refraction occurs, the meta-material becomes invisible, suggesting that if we were to use this in sonogram technology, it could be possible to make the image appear in mid-air like a hologram rather than on a computer screen," he said.

FIRST Place
by Harry Hutchinson

The FIRST organization's 2008 robotics competitions have started around the country, and in New York City, where Mechanical Engineering is based, the FIRST LEGO League held its trials days before a landmark anniversary for the LEGO itself.

On to Atlanta: Transformers No. 2, one of four teams from St. Clare’s Elementary School on Staten Island, won first place, and a date at the nationals in April.

The LEGO Leaguers met in Riverbank State Park in Manhattan on Saturday, Jan. 26, and a team called Transformers No. 2, from St. Clare's Elementary School on Staten Island, won the day, placing first among a total of 81 teams. They will go on to compete at the FIRST national competitions at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta April 17 through 19.

Monday, the 28th, marked 50 years to the day since Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, son of the founder of the LEGO company, filed the original patent application for the toy brick that has become synonymous with the company. (You can find the history of LEGO at http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=timeline7.)

There were four Transformers teams from St. Clare's. Another of those teams, called Transformers No. 1, placed second in the overall competition. There were 820 students in various teams, and about 700 spectators, according to a spokeswoman for the event.

At the Riverbank: More than 1,500 people attended the New York area FIRST LEGO League competition at Riverbank State Park in Manhattan. Photos courtesty of New York City FIRST.

The kids in the FIRST LEGO League build robots from kits that include LEGO parts. This year's competition, called Power Puzzle, had a green theme and included maneuvering the robots around a scale model of a city to place wind turbines and to install a solar panel on the roof of a house. They are spelled out on a Web site, http://www.firstlegoleague.org/default.aspx?pid =29600.

The FIRST competitions receive wide support from industry. LEGO is one of hundreds of sponsors and suppliers. They are all identified at the organization's Web site, www.usfirst.org.

FIRST, an acronym meaning "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology," was founded by the inventor Dean Kamen, who heads DEKA Research & Development Corp. in Manchester, N.H. The organization says its mission is to motivate children to become "science and technology leaders."

The FIRST LEGO League is open to elementary and middle school-age children. The New York regional FIRST Robotic Competition for high school-age students will be held April 4 through 6 at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

2007-08 New York City FIRST LEGO League Championship Award Winners Champions Award: First Place: Team #1409, Transformers #2, St. Clare's Elementary School, Staten Island Second: #1408, Transformers #1, St. Clare's Elementary School, Staten Island Third: #1996, Panthers #2, IS 75, Staten Island Fourth: #4084, Architecti, Bronx Latin Middle School, Bronx Fifth: #948, Cyberbots Techs, Bric-2-Bots, Queens Project Award: First: #6292, Warbots, Cambria Center, Queens Second: #845, MS302 Tech Squad, MS 302X, Bronx Third: #1822, Pacers, MS 118X, Bronx Fourth: #199, Tech Knows, Staten Island Tech HS, Staten Island Fifth: #1634, Team X, ESMT IS 190X, Bronx Robot Design: First: #2132, Ridder Kids, IS 98X, Bronx Second: #1995, Panthers #1, IS 75, Staten Island Third: #4850, MATobot, Manhattan Acad. Of Technology / PS126/Chinatown YMCA, Manhattan Fourth: #198, Tech Knights, Staten Island Tech HS, Staten Island Fifth: #2627, LREI Knights, Little Red School House, Manhattan Teamwork: First: #1435, Pack-A-Watt, Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn Second: #1965, Rocco Laurie, IS 72, Staten Island Third: #332, Rogue Leaders, IS 24, Staten Island Fourth: #5501, Powah Playaz, IS 49, Staten Island Fifth: #2880, RoboWarriors, Benjamin Banneker Academy, Brooklyn Spirit Award: #1654, Panthers, PS 21 Crispus Attucks, Brooklyn Against All Odds: #3107, BedBots, Bedford Academy, Brooklyn Judges Award: #196, Solargy, PS/IS 123, Bronx Performance: First: #1409, Transformers #2, St. Clare’s Elementary School, Staten Island Second: #3840, Cyberbots-Engineers, Brics-2-Bots, Queens Third: #1411, Transformers #4, St. Clare’s Elementary School, Staten Island Fourth: #948, Cyberbots - Techs, Brics-2-Bots, Queens Fifth: #1965, Rocco Laurie, IS 72, Staten Island

SuperPower Inc., the superconductor manufacturer in Schenectady, N.Y., has signed a licensing agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory for exclusive rights to technology that uses the deposition of lanthanum-manganese-oxide in its second-generation superconductive wire. The material serves as one of the buffers between the substrate and the superconductive layer. The technology was jointly developed by ORNL and SuperPower.

Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., has won a contract to provide facility support services at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. CSC estimated the value of the contract to be $544 million if all options are exercised. This award follows a contract signed with NASA in January 2002. Under terms of the contract, CSC will operate the mission control power plant and provide operations and maintenance support services for facilities at JSC.

A joint venture agreement was signed by Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. company based in Hartford, Conn., and Turkish Airlines Technic Inc., a Turkish Airlines company, to build an aircraft engine overhaul center in Istanbul. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The joint venture facility, to be named Pratt & Whitney Turkish Technic Aircraft Engine Maintenance Center LLP, will overhaul V2500 and CFM56 engines. Construction will begin in early 2008 and the first engine is expected to be introduced in 2009.

A new DuPont Performance Coatings plant has begun manufacturing operations in the Jiading district of Shanghai. Plans for the new facility, which primarily will serve the Chinese automotive refinish market, were announced in 2006. The new plant currently employs 160 people, but the number is expected to grow to approximately 250 once manufacturing operations reach capacity. The plant was designed with a "lean manufacturing" layout, a comprehensive term referring to manufacturing methods based on maximizing value and minimizing waste while operating safely.

Cimatron Ltd. of Givat Shmuel, Israel, which makes CAD and computer-aided manufacturing software, and Gibbs System Inc. of Moorpark, Calif., developer of GibbsCAM software for programming CNC machine tools, have merged Gibbs into a newly established U.S. subsidiary of Cimatron.

Visual Components of Helsinki, Finland, a maker of 3-D robotics and manufacturing simulation technology, has released a new standard component library that includes flexible component models for a variety of plant layout and production applications.